Tee hee


The other day in class, the professor was writing the word “haplology” on the board, but ended up writing “haplogy.” I think that merits a “tee hee.”

3 Comments so far

  1. John Lawler on November 11th, 2006

    That’s one of the self-demonstrating linguistic mnemonics that one finds in Studies Out In Left Field, along with rhotacirrmapocoppocopemethatesisepenethesis and lots of others. Also good for explaining how things work to introductory classes. Are you sure it wasn’t on purpose?

  2. John Lawler on November 11th, 2006

    Ah, I see UL tags are forbidden. Sorry.

  3. Russell on November 11th, 2006

    Haha, that is a good one.

    Yeah, these sorts of sound change mnemonics are indeed funny (and useful), but in this case the professor was embarrassed and rewrote the word (and besides which, exactly what haplology is wasn’t the point of the discussion). But I’ve heard apocop, synchpe, phaeresis, and so on; some of those seem to be in that beast of a word. =)

    (and about various html tags, I guess I’m not sure what is and isn’t allowed in the comments. I’ll have to investigate…)

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